Thursday, June 13, 2013

Mobsters Joseph "Mousie" Massimino and Damion Canalichio have to wait at
least another month before finding out their fate, but the convicted
wiseguys are going to go down swinging.

Lawyers for both
Philadelphia crime figures filed motions challenging pre-sentence
reports that suggest each should be sentenced to from 17 to 21 years in
prison for their February convictions on racketeering conspiracy
charges. Their lawyers argue the guidelines should be in the four- to
six-year range.

Their sentencings, postponed for a second time, are now scheduled for July.

Two
other defendants in that case, mob boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi and
his nephew George Borgesi, who are to be retried on those same
conspiracy charges -- the jury hung on those counts against Ligambi and
Borgesi -- are also in pitched legal battles that could set the tone for
their retrial in October.

Ligambi's lawyer wants to insure that
the criminal charges for which the jury found Uncle Joe not guilty in
February can't be used to support the conspiracy charge central to the
retrial that is to begin Oct. 15. Borgesi's lawyer, meanwhile, is trying
to have the conspiracy count -- the only remaining charge against his
client -- thrown out, arguing that since Borgesi was acquitted of 13
specific criminal charges in the first trial, there is nothing left to
support the conspiracy count.

Prosecutors this week asked for a second extension of the deadline to file a response. They now have until June 17 to reply.

In
arguing that the case against Borgesi, 50, should be dropped,
Christopher Warren wrote that the racketeering conspiracy charge is
based on the same criminal allegations detailed in the 13 counts for
which Borgesi was found not guilty.

To convict Borgesi in the
pending trial,. Warren argued, the government would have to prove that
"he conspired or agreed...to commit the same substantive racketeering
offenses that the jury had already decided he did not conspire to
commit."

Both Warren and Ligambi's attorney, Edwin Jacobs Jr.,
cite the legal argument known as collateral estoppel and a U.S. Supreme
Court ruling on that issue that, according to Jacobs, "protects a
defendant who has been acquitted from having to run the gauntlet a
second time."

Jacobs argued that the racketeering conspiracy
charge against Ligambi, 73, cannot be presented to the jury in the
retrial based on any of the extortion or gambling charges for which the
jury found him not guilty. In Ligambi's case, the jury was hung -- or
was undecided -- on the racketeering conspiracy charge, on two counts
tied to the operations of an illegal video poker machine business and on
one count of witness tampering. He was found not guilty of extortion,
bookmaking and fraud charges.

The counts on which the jury hung
are the only crimes that the prosecution should be permitted to present
in support of the conspiracy charge, wrote Jacobs, who once again cited
the overall jury verdict as a vindication for the defense, even though
several defendants are facing serious jail time. In his analysis,
Jacobs wrote: "After an almost four-month trial, including 21 days of
deliberation, the jury rejected more than ninety-percent of the
allegations constituting the `pattern of racketeering' alleged by the
government. Of the 61counts alleged in the government’s Third
Superseding Indictment, only five resulted in convictions. Of the
remaining counts, 45 resulted in acquittals and 11resulted in a hung
jury. The jury failed to convict (Ligambi) on any of the nine counts for
which he was charged, acquitting him of five counts and failing to
reach a decision on the remaining four counts."

Borgesi's numbers
are even more lopsided. As Warren noted, he was acquitted of 13 counts
and the jury hung only on the racketeering conspiracy.

What's
more, Warren argued, the government's case against Borgesi was built
primarily around the testimony of mob associate Louis "Bent Finger Lou"
Monacello who testified that he ran a gambling and loansharking
operation for Borgesi after Borgesi was convicted and jailed in an
unrelated racketeering case in 2001.

The prosecution contends
that Borgesi primarily conspired from behind bars. He has been in jail
since March 2000. His scheduled release on a 14-year prison sentence was
delayed when he was indicted along with Ligambi and the others in the
current case in May 2011.

Whether Monacello, 44, is back on the
stand at the retrial is an open question that continues to circulate in
both law enforcement and underworld circles. Indicted with Ligambi,
Borgesi and the others, the brash talking wannabe wiseguy left South
Philadelphia after becoming a cooperating witness and pleading guilty to
the same racketeering conspiracy charge that Ligambi and Borgesi are
now fighting.

From the witness stand, his animosity toward both
men was palpable. He never missed an opportunity to chide or belittle
either defendant and claimed that he was cooperating because he believed
Ligambi planned to have him killed and Borgesi, once he had returned
from prison, would have carried out the hit.

He also alleged that Borgesi once boasted that he had been involved in 11 gangland murders.

"I would have gone out one night and never come back," Moncello told the jury.

The
defense, both during the trial in in post-trial motions, has argued
that Monacello's testimony was unbelievable and, more important, was
rejected by the jury.

Warren, in his motion, noted that
Monacello's role in the bookmaking and loansharking operation was never
in dispute. Monacello admitted it. But, the lawyer said, the jury's
verdict clearly indicated that it did not believe his testimony linking
Borgesi to those crimes.

The only conclusion that could be drawn
from the jury's verdict, Warren argued, "is that no such conspiracy or
agreement between Mr. Borgesi and Monacello to commit these offenses
existed and that Monacello was acting on his own."

Just what
evidence the government intends to offer to support the conspiracy
charges should be part of the prosecution's motion due next week.

The
sentencings of Massimino, Canalichio, Anthony Staino and Gary
Battaglini, meanwhile, have been rescheduled for July. Massimino, the
reputed underboss, goes first. His lawyer, Joseph Santaguida, filed a
motion earlier this month challenging the sentencing guideline range and
the argument that Massimino is a "career offender," a designation that
enhances his guidelines. As he had during the trial, Santaguida
called the government's case "a cinematic fiction" built on the the
frustration of law enforcement for its failure to develop a more
significant racketeering indictment despite a 10-year investigation.

Santaguida
said the indictment was "nothing more than a glorified gambling case"
and that the government was "forced to blow these acts out of proportion
because they wasted millions of tax dollars and resources" in the
decade-long probe.

Canalichio's lawyer, Margaret Grasso, offered
many of the same arguments in contesting the high guideline range that
her client faces. A twice-convicted drug dealer, Canalichio was tied to a
low-level bookmaking operation, she argued, and at best played a minor
role in the operation,

Both lawyers cited the lack of
specificity in the jury's verdict to argue against a government
interpretation that the two defendants were major mob operatives and
part of a broad conspiracy.

Massimino, 62, is scheduled to be
sentenced on July 11. Canalichio, 43, will be sentenced on July 16.
Battaglini, 52, and Staino, 55, on July 17. In the latest development in
the case, Robert Ranieri, 37, entered a guilty plea today to an
extortion charge and avoided trial. He is to be sentenced in September.

Ranieri
and Eric Espositio, charged with bookmaking, were severed from the
original trial. Esposito is now scheduled to be tried with Ligambi and
Borgesi in October, but several sources say he too is likely to enter a
plea.

While defense attorney continue to tout the case as
overblown -- Jacobs has referred to it as "racketeering lite" --
prosecutors point to the results. Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Labor
noted at the end of the trial in February that most of the defendants in
the case had either pleaded guilty or been convicted.

Of the 14
original defendants, six have pleaded guilty and four were found guilty
at trial. Only Joseph "Scoops" Licata, 71, was found not guilty and is
free. So while defense attorneys continue to point to a jury verdict
that "gutted" the prosecution's case, most of the defendants are in
jail. And in the cases of Massimino and Canalichio, they could be there
for a very long time.